After paying tribute to one of Major League Soccer’s brightest stars, the Crew honored its fans
with its most dominating performance of the season.

On what was unofficially Landon Donovan Night at Crew Stadium in honor of the retiring Los
Angeles forward, the Crew offense reached a season high in goals in a 4-1 win over the Galaxy in
front of an announced sellout crowd of 20,729.

“We don’t want to get too overzealous with one win, but that’s a really good team right there,”
Crew midfielder Ethan Finlay said. “That’s a team with a championship pedigree, and I think we
dominated for a full 90 minutes.”

After going into the half with a 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Justin Meram and Finlay, the Crew
(7-8-9, 30 points) allowed the Galaxy to cut the deficit in half with a Gyasi Zardes goal four
minutes in. It created doubt, but the Crew stiffened and got goals from Ben Speas in the 75th
minute and Giancarlo Gonzalez in the 84th.

Entering the game, the Galaxy (9-5-7, 34 points) had allowed no more than two goals all season
and had lost just once in its past 12 games.

But after a wide-open start to the game, Meram struck first. Crew midfielder Tony Tchani took
several acrobatic touches to maintain possession in the offensive half and found Meram, who moved
up the left side. With defenders all around, Meram feinted to his left, spun, maintained possession
and took a 20-yard, right-footed shot that went past Galaxy goalkeeper Jaime Penedo in the 23rd
minute.

It was Meram’s fourth goal of the season and second in as many games. It also was his third
significant chance, and he wasn’t done. Ten minutes later, his pass set up Finlay for the second
goal.

After receiving the ball from Federico Higuain, Meram cut hard toward the center of the field
and caused the Galaxy defenders to commit to him. As they did, he softly sent the ball into open
space on the left side of the penalty area, where a charging Finlay’s left-footed attempt beat
Penedo, hit the crossbar and bounded over the line for his sixth goal of the season.

After coming off the bench last weekend in a loss to Toronto, Meram said assistant coach Josh
Wolff challenged him.

“(He) told me I have the will to try and score and do something,” Meram said. “He told me, ‘Why
don’t you start like that? Start with everything you’ve got.’ I took that approach.”

Speas and Gonzalez scored their first goals of the season. Speas’ came right after he replaced
Meram. Gonzalez’s was the first scored by a Crew defender this season.

Before the game, the Crew presented Donovan with a framed piece of netting from the U.S.
national team’s 2-0 win over Mexico at Crew Stadium last fall, a game in which Donovan scored. Last
night, he came up empty on a few first-half chances and finished with four shots, but nothing to
show for them.

“I think they just outcompeted us,” Donovan said of the Crew. “For whatever reason, they wanted
it more.”